Its time for the Great Forest National Park

Peter Campbell
Letter to the Editor (submitted to Heraldsun), 14/8/14

A clear majority of Victorian's want our native forests protected.

However, the Napthine government still allows Vicforests to continue logging them, even though they operate at a loss.

The export woodchip industry in NSW has collapsed and no longer buys wood from VicForests - which now has a very low value product with no buyers.

It's time for this to change.

Vicforests don't make a profit and should be shut down.

We need political leadership and a commitment to modernise the Victorian paper industry by shifting out of native forests into existing plantations.

Our forests are far more valuable for the water they produce, the carbon they store and for tourism.

The proposed Great Forest National Park would see our Central Highlands forests protected, along with Leadbeaters Possum and several other threatened species, for future generations to appreciate.

Victorian government report card. How is Denis Napthine performing - ENVIRONMENT

Tom Arup
The Age, 20/11/2013

ENVIRONMENT

The Coalition's environmental agenda has been defined by never really having one. No formal platform was taken to the 2010 election, allowing the government to freelance ever since.

Environment Minister Ryan Smith has largely plugged away at low-profile recycling and waste issues, while Water Minister Peter Walsh has made significant investments in storm water harvesting and water recycling.

Eventually a list of environmental priorities was quietly released. But much more has been dismantled. Almost all the state's climate change policies were scrapped and, controversially, cattle grazing was reintroduced to the Alpine National Park, only to be stopped by the Commonwealth.

A new allocation of brown coal is on the table. Firewood collection laws have been loosened; prohibitive wind farm restrictions have been introduced; and national parks opened up for private tourism development. The government has also faced rising community concern about the survival of state's animal emblem - the Leadbeater's possum. An election commitment to increase the average energy efficiency rating of all Victorian homes to five stars has not been seriously acted on.

Ultimately the Coalition has decided concern for the environment is not strong enough in the electorate to swing significant votes.

Visit while you can

Alastair Traill, Wonga Park
The Age (letter), 6/10/2013

For an uplifting experience, visit an old-growth forest - only 1880 hectares remain in our Central Highlands and soon there will be even less. We need a hero to stop the chainsaws, someone to tell politicians there is more to Victoria than the Great Ocean Road or penguins; that they are the custodians of the world's largest flowering plants, more impressive than California's General Sherman - Earth's bulkiest and most visited tree; that our forests are the planet's best for storing carbon.

About 40 animal species depend on old-growth tree hollows. Thus our hero needs animal management skills as well as economic and political talent. A former vet trained in scientific logic would be ideal, it is up to you, Dr Napthine - a park for all, not woodchips for a few.

Failing on forests

Warwick Sprawson, Brunswick West
The Age (letter), 23/9/13

The decision to log Mount Cole State Park (''Green anger at go-ahead for state forest logging'', 21/9) shows the gulf between the state government's actions and community expectations. In 2010, a National Parks Association report, ''Better Protection for Special Places'', listed Mount Cole as the Central Victorian reserve in most need of additional protection, based on the park's high-quality vegetation and diversity of wildflowers, including species such as the vulnerable Grampians bitter-pea. Mount Cole was also home to a range of vulnerable animals rare in Victoria, such as the powerful owl and brush-tailed phascogale. The state government's continued assault on our environment does not meet modern standards of environmental stewardship.

Green anger at go-ahead for state forest logging

Tom Arup, Environment editor
The Age, September 21, 2013

The Napthine government will reopen commercial logging in the Mount Cole state forest near Ararat in the first significant step towards increased timber cutting in western Victoria.

Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh on Friday announced he was seeking expressions of interest from foresters to harvest 3000 cubic metres of sawlogs in the Mount Cole forests over three years.

The decision follows a one-year harvesting ''trial'' at Mount Cole launched in late 2012 that allowed 600 cubic metres of wood to be taken through silvicultural harvesting and the salvaging of trees felled by storms.
Mr Walsh said the new Mount Cole logging licence was small-scale, but would create ongoing jobs in harvesting, hauling and processing of timber. He said 20 of the 4000 hectares of forest in the region that was suitable for sawlogs would be harvested each year. Before last year's trial, logging had not occurred at Mount Cole since 2004.

The government has also recently completed a tender for increased logging in ironbark and sugar gum forests near Bendigo, and will issue new licences for sawlogs in the red gum forests of the Mid Murray and Horsham regions when old ones lapse.

It follows the recommendations of a government-commissioned review into logging rates in western Victoria, also released on Friday.

Green groups hit out at the decision, with Nick Roberts, a campaigner with the Victorian National Parks Association, saying the report was a wish list from local timber interests wanting access to western Victorian forests.

''The industry was paid millions to exit these forests 10 years ago,'' he said.

''Expanding logging in high-conservation-value forests is not supported by most Victorians. This announcement shows the Napthine government is not listening.''

But the timber industry welcomed the move, with Victorian Association of Forest Industries chief executive Lisa Marty saying that allowing harvesting at two-thirds of the sustainable level of Mount Cole was ''a good example of setting a balance between ecological, social and economic values''.

Much of the large-scale commercial native timber logging in Victoria takes place east of the Hume Highway in the forests of Gippsland and the Central Highlands.

Large-scale logging in western Victoria - notably in the Otways forests - was phased out by the previous state Labor government, with plantations and a handful of native firewood cutters remaining.

But since coming to power in 2010, the Coalition-led state government has flagged it wanted to see a boosted timber industry in western Victoria. An internal note from the former Department of Primary Industries, seen by Fairfax Media, says after timber harvesting was scaled down in the early 2000s, several areas in western Victoria had been left ''underutilised''.

The review identifies other areas that could be opened up to small increases in logging, including the Otways, although that would not occur until the timber industry is re-established at Mount Cole.

But Mr Walsh said: ''While the review assessed potential sawlog yields in timber production areas across western Victoria's state forests, there are no plans for new sawlog allocations aside from those mentioned above.

''The Victorian Coalition government will not consider any expansion outside of existing timber-production areas.''

Push for national park to save possum

Tom Arup, Environment editor
The Age, 29 August 2013

A Leadbeater's possum. Photo: Justin McManus

The Greens and Professor Tim Flannery will back the creation of a new national park in Victoria's highland forests as part of efforts to save the endangered Leadbeater's Possum at a public forum on Thursday.
At an event in Melbourne the Greens will launch a campaign to establish the Great Forest National Park to protect Leadbeater's and other species in the bushfire ravaged highland forests, also a major logging area.

The new national park was first proposed by ANU ecologist Professor David Lindenmayer – who will also speak at the event alongside former Greens leader Bob Brown and Professor Flannery.

Fairfax Media reported this month that cabinet–in–confidence scientific advice to the state government had found the current habitat set aside for the Leadbeater's possum was not large enough to ensure its survival.

The possums lost 42 per cent of their habitat in the Black Saturday bushfires. Conservationists say continued logging in the region has exacerbated the species' decline. Estimates of the remaining populations of the Leadbeater's possum range from 1500 to 3000.

The Greens say they will push for the new national park at both the state and federal level. National parks are largely the domain of state governments.

The Napthine Government has formed a committee headed by loggers and the zoo to make recommendations on how to save the species.

Professor Flannery told Fairfax Media current Victorian government policy was dooming the species to extinction and he backed the national park proposal as a way to change that trajectory.

''We have a legislative and a moral obligation to preserve [the Leadbeater's possum],'' he said.
''To let it go extinct would be a national tragedy. It is the state emblem of Victoria for god's sake.''
Victorian Greens Senator Richard DiNatale said Australia had one of the poorest records in the world when it came to loss of biodiversity and species extinction.

''The government-owned company that logs Victoria's forests gets free land and free trees but it still manages to make a loss. It's economic and environmental lunacy. Creating a national park would create sustainable jobs and give our precious state animal emblem a chance of survival,'' he said.

As part of its environment election platform the Coalition has vowed to establish a threatened species commissioner. The Coaliition's environment spokesman Greg Hunt said the commissioner would prepare, implement and monitor recovery plans for threatened species.

Halt the logging

Marion Lewis, Toolangi
The Age (letter), 27/8/2013

The Napthine government has announced it will set up a committee to investigate ways to save the endangered Leadbeater's possum. Unless the government defers all logging in the Central Highlands until after the committee has delivered its findings, this action reeks of hypocrisy. Several coupes of the best remaining Leadbeater's habitat are due to be logged in the next few weeks. If this is allowed to happen, it will render the committee and its decisions irrelevant.

National park plans 'betrayal of public trust'

Tom Arup
The Age, August 19, 2013 

Former state governor and Olympic legend John Landy has joined a group of eminent Victorians urging the Napthine government to abandon moves to open up national parks for tourism development.
In an open letter sent to Premier Denis Napthine on Sunday night the group, which also includes Nobel prizewinner Professor Peter Doherty, hit out at the development plans, which will be debated in State Parliament this week.

The letter, titled Privatising Our National Parks - A Betrayal of Public Trust, says allowing tourism development is risky, deprives Victorians of their public land and is not in keeping with the environmental values of national parks.

The state government is opening up two-thirds of national park land for ''nature-based'' tourism development - including low-rise hotels, restaurants and jetties - and has called for potential developers to come forward. Under the changes, the government will grant leases in parks such as Wilsons Promontory and the Grampians to private companies for up to 99 years. Projects will need approval from the environment minister before they go ahead.

''In reality, a 99-year lease transfers ownership of a public asset, something we all own and can share, to a private benefit enjoyed by a privileged few,'' the letter says.

Also among the 21 signatories are former Australian of the Year Sir Gustav Nossal, retired Family Court judge John Fogarty, and founder of SANE Australia Dr Margaret Leggatt. The group points to the troubled tourism project at Seal Rocks on Phillip Island in the 2000s - which resulted in the state government being sued, costing taxpayers $55 million - as an example of what could go wrong.

''Low-risk, attractive development could be encouraged in outstanding locations just outside our national parks,'' the letter says.

Another signatory, RMIT Professor Michael Buxton, said national parks were more crucial than ever in conserving biological diversity and landscapes.

''But on a broader level what worries me is this is part of a systematic destruction of the conservation state and environmental policy by this government,'' Professor Buxton said.

No excuses for losses

Jill Redwood, Environment East Gippsland, Orbost
The Age (letter), 19/8/13

We mourn the loss of the dodo and Tasmanian Tiger as well as countless beautiful creatures that have been wiped from this planet. We excuse these losses as being due to our forebears' ignorance. But it's now 2013 and the Napthine government is set to tip entire species into the extinction pit with full scientific knowledge (''Possum needs more room to survive'', 16/8).

Ignorance is not the reason now; shameless greed and political expedience is. Our governments care more for the protection of their corporate partners than our natural areas and wildlife. Entire species found nowhere else in the world are due to be executed because of their crime of living in the woodchip zones of Victoria's woodchip, pulp and paper industry.

Vic govt declines to comment on possum extinction

Mark Colvin 
ABC PM -  14/08/2013

MARK COLVIN: Last night we ran an interview with the leading expert on Victoria's faunal emblem the Leadbeater's possum who warned of the creature's likely extinction.

Professor David Lindenmayer of the ANU draws on more than 30 years of work in the Victorian Ash forests studying the possum.

He argued among other things that a new national park was needed to protect the Leadbeater's possum, because without areas completely free of logging, it had no chance of survival.

We said then that we'd be seeking a substantial response from the Victorian government tonight.

Today, the Victorian Environment Minister, Ryan Smith, declined our invitation to appear.

He referred us to the Agriculture Minister, Peter Walsh, who was also unavailable.

PM then approached the Premier's office, but he too declined.

Mr Walsh's office suggested we talk instead to the loggers' peak body, the Victorian Association of Forest Industries.

Its Chief Executive is Lisa Marty.

LISA MARTY: Look I, I think given the impact of the 2009 bushfires, which burnt 45 per cent of the Leadbeater possum reserve area, the survival of the Leadbeater possum is a concern for many Victorians, certainly including those in the forest and wood products industry.

MARK COLVIN: You don't accept what Professor Lindenmayer says, that it's the effect of both logging and bushfires?

LISA MARTY: Look I think there's a range of challenges facing the Leadbeater possum, but overwhelmingly the impact of the 2009 bushfires has made the situation very critical. As an industry and certainly as the Victorian Association of Forest Industries we're committed to responsible forest management and to the recovery of the Leadbeater possum alongside a sustainable local forest and wood products industry.

MARK COLVIN: And critical means urgent doesn't it? I mean what's being done in the very short term?

LISA MARTY: It is about the short term future of the Leadbeater possum but it's also about the future of the possum in the long term.

David Lindenmayer's work does show that over time there are a range of challenges facing the possum; so there are both short and longer term challenges.

MARK COLVIN: But this advisory committee, this Leadbeater's Possum Advisory Group, when is that going to produce any real results?

LISA MARTY: The group has been requested to provide recommendations back to the government before the end of the year. It's quite a short timeframe but we will be drawing on the latest science, including the work of Professor Lindenmayer, as well as the outcomes of recent work by the Arthur Rylah Institute, which was commissioned by the Victorian government, last year as well as the contributions of stakeholders.

MARK COLVIN: Well he tells me that he's been writing to the government and has had really no response, is he going to have any guarantee of being properly listened to by this group?

LISA MARTY: Certainly. It is absolutely crucial that the work of respected scientists such as Professor Lindenmayer, the scientists at the Arthur Rylah Institute, forest scientists, social scientists, provide concrete recommendations to the advisory group to draw on alongside the contributions of key stakeholders.

MARK COLVIN: What about his proposal that there should be a new national park; that there should be an area which is specifically reserved from logging because he says that's the only way the Leadbeater's possum, which is the emblem of Victoria, is going to survive.

LISA MARTY: Look it's difficult at this stage to pre-judge what might come out of the work of the advisory group. Suffice to say that Professor Lindenmayer is one of the key experts being engaged, and his work will...

MARK COLVIN: But isn't it fair to say that the Forest Industry Association and its previous iterations have always opposed any attempt to lock off more land for the protection of the possum?

LISA MARTY: Look I think in reality there has been an increase in reserves for the possum. It's very unfortunate that along with the impacts on the community of the 2009 bushfires, 45 per cent of the Leadbeater possum reserve area was effected. And unfortunately the Leadbeater possum has been shown to be incredibly fire sensitive and does not continue to exist in the areas which have been effect by fire; so that is really driving a more critical situation.

MARK COLVIN: You would have heard your predecessor, Robert Bain, of the Forest Industry Association last night on the Four Corners program in 1991 saying that he was not worried in the sense that good management would maintain a healthy population of Leadbeater's possum. And he told me at the time it would be alright because they'd be putting in nesting boxes. Now David Lindenmayer says that he did a 10 year study on that nesting boxes idea and the possums simply don't use them. So why would your optimism now be anymore well placed than his then?

LISA MARTY: Look I think that's true, that research has shown that in the Ash forests, where this population of Leadbeater's possums exist, nest boxes are not preferred. They do work very well in Yellingbo, it's difficult to look back and…

MARK COLVIN: That means that you have to have what they call "stag trees" those are the old trees that have the big old hollows in them.

LISA MARTY: That's right.

MARK COLVIN: And the pattern is, isn't it, that the foresters have tended to clear fell them and not leave enough for the possums?

LISA MARTY: Look there are a range of prescriptions in place at the moment to protect Leadbeater possum habitat. Obviously this is a challenging situation and we need to look at what needs to be done in the future, certainly we can look back and we need to learn from the past. But we need to understand based on the work of key scientists right now, what do we need to be doing in the future to ensure the recovery of the Leadbeater's possum. And we certainly believe that the sustainable local timber industry can co-exist.

MARK COLVIN: Lisa Marty, the chief executive of the Victorian Association of Forest Industries.

VicForests cash flow under fire

Tom Arup, Environment editor

The Age, June 18, 2013

VicForests has rejected damning analysis and claims it delivered overall profits since 2004. Photo: Paul Rovere

Victoria's state-owned timber company VicForests has racked up cash losses of $22million since it was formed - equating to a loss of $1.50 for every cubic metre of wood it has logged - an analysis of its public accounts has found.

The review was carried out by the Australian Conservation Foundation's economic unit and concludes the company's cash flow problems and large debt indicate trouble with its core business.

But VicForests rejected the analysis saying it has delivered overall profits since it was created in 2004 and generated billions of dollars in economic activity for the state. The state Auditor-General's Office is currently auditing the management of Victorian forests, including VicForests' operations.

The report was commissioned by the Healesville Environment Watch, which is campaigning against native timber harvesting. The group's chairman, Steve Meacher, said it would be submitted to the Auditor-General to be considered in its review.

The ACF analysis of VicForests financial statements from 2005 to 2012 found the company has current debts of $26.8 million to the Treasury Corporation of Victoria - the state government's financing body - which charges lower interest rates than the commercial market.

But if VicForests was required to pay commercial rates it would struggle further, the report concludes. It also questions changes in accounting methods that have seen a sharp rise in the value of VicForests assets - such as seeds, regenerating coupes and stored and standing timber - in recent years.

The report looks at the amount of cash that is being generated by VicForests and how much it is spending. But it does not look at the company's overall profits and losses.

The report's author Tristan Knowles said that was because cash flows were a better indicator of the health of a company. He said profit and loss statements were more prone to accounting adjustments.

Mr Knowles said because it was paying lower rates, and could rack up cash losses, VicForests was crowding out plantation timber growers with wood logged in native forests.

But Nathan Trushell, VicForests' director of corporate affairs, rejected the report findings. He said it showed ''a limited understanding of VicForests' operations and financial reporting practices and at no point was VicForests contacted to provide the clarification needed''.

''Publicly available information has been used to develop recommendations that are unsupported by the scope of the analysis, ignore the realities of the broader timber industry and disregard the current economic climate,'' he said.

Mr Trushell said VicForests had recorded a net profit of $11.6 million since being created and increased the value of its current assets by almost $20 million during this time.